1. Technical Field
This present invention relates generally to funds transfer and more specifically to employing a mobile phone for funds transfer between a sender and a receiver.
2. Related Art
In the last few years, Internet technologies have proliferated and millions of people use the Internet for business and for personal activities. In addition, social networks have taken off wherein a number of people can communicate with each other using Internet based systems such as Facebook. However, much of these technologies has not made its way to rural communities across the world, and has had limited impact on their lives.
There are several unmet needs for users who live in small rural communities, and some of these are being met by means of mobile phones. There is need for new solutions that can be managed, with proper control over who can conduct specific activities, especially for facilitating banking in places where there are no brick-and-mortar banks or ATM machines. Such solutions do not yet exist.
Mobile devices are becoming ubiquitous. People in urban areas carry them and so do people living in rural communities. Most people working in remote locations use mobile phones to stay in touch with their family, customers and take phone calls throughout the day.
Urban-oriented banks and financial institutions in the developing world, such as India, perceive business prospects in shifting focus to the rural sector. The rural Indian market, for example, a hitherto much neglected one, is now emerging as a large pool of high net worth individuals, traders, entrepreneurs, processing industries, marketing and warehousing agencies, market intermediaries, professionals, educational institutions, plantations and so on provides a wide range of business avenues and market for these institutions to diversify the risks and also seek growth.
Despite decades of effort and experimentation in banking, the organised financial sector is still not able to meet the credit gap in the rural sector. It took time for banks to realise the potential of the rural markets. Lack of infrastructure in the rural areas and the focus in the urban sector were some of the reasons. In view of this, there is great need for technology to provide support to the rural populace via an easy mode of access to bank accounts and credits, in addition to funds transfer facilities. There is a need to offer the banking sector an easy reach with minimal infrastructure. The situation is similar in other communities in the world, where commercial banking has made little inroads.
One of the main problems in rural places (villages, small towns, etc.) in the world is the lack of bank branches, ATM machines or other type of financial organizations in proximity to the rural communities. In addition, credit cards are of limited use as there are no departmental stores that accept credit cards or debit cards. Small rural stores do not have point-of-sale devices that are typically used for swiping credit cards and other type of cards to conduct purchases, etc.
Accordingly, the present invention addresses the need for rural people to conduct banking operations, access banking services, make payments to each other, send funds to each other, etc. despite the lack of traditional banking facilities such as ATM machines, banking counters and point-of-sale devices. The present invention enables easy & secure/payment, from without the need for any additional infrastructure costs to the users and the banks. In most rural places in the world, very few ATMs or bank facilities are in proximity to rural people. Very few rural people have bank accounts. In addition, very few point-of-sale (POS) devices are available or used in small stores and places of business. There is a need for simple-to-operate secure financial transaction means. There is also a need to support farmer-to-farmer transactions in rural places where there are no ATM machines available and no banking counters, etc. There is also a need to maintain records of transactions made by rural people as they buy and sell produce.
The present invention also addresses the need to identify an individual properly during mobile transactions, in general. There is a need to monitor transactions conducted on mobile phones. There is need to provide proper identification means, transaction control means, transaction approval means, etc. Mobile phones can be stolen and misused, user passwords can be stolen, PIN codes can be hacked (or guessed), etc. Thus, the identity of a user of a mobile phone needs to be properly ascertained and verified. The present invention addresses the “user identity” issue thereby making mobile transactions safer and more secure.
There are a few examples of technology where the mobile telephone network has been used for some types of mobile transactions. The Obopay system requires setting up accounts at Nokia stores and similar outlets initially by a user, and it involves associating a credit card with the user account for subsequent transactions. This makes it harder for rural people, especially those without a credit card, to participate. Once a credit card is associated, subsequent charges made for mobile purchases are conducted via the credit card. The Obopay system can be a burden on the rural user in India, as a network of Nokia stores or similar outlets may not be easily available. The Beam Card requires purchase of Beam Gift cards that are used as pre-paid cards for purchases by users. Beam does not provide mobile banking support, nor adhoc payment from one user to another when the users have not yet setup some kind of account or registered with them—rather it provides gift card purchases and payment against such gift cards. The Done card system used by OSS is also based on gift cards being purchased, often limited to small amounts (cannot be larger than a threshold such as Rs 10000) which limits what a person can do (cannot purchase two large bags of cement or two bags of fertilizers, or even a plane ticket to Delhi from Chennai). The whole gift-card based approach is rather limiting, in that the person has to track down a place where such giftcards are sold, which are often not in the proximity/vicinity of a user. Thus these are unsuitable for rural places.
Rural people do not carry credit cards/debit cards and point-of-sale devices are usually unavailable in stores found in rural areas, therefore credit card/debit cards (even if one possesses them) are rendered useless. Access to ready cash is also limited as rural areas (in India or in other rural communities all over the world) do not have reliable ATM machines. The other issue is that authentication of the user in an Indian rural setting via the traditional methods is a problem. Besides, there is a real problem of rural people being excluded from financial systems and the modern innovations in the banking sector, due to their lack of knowledge and limited access to financial education. The present invention addresses all of these problems faced by rural people (in India and other places) by providing a very simple, easy and very secure solution that would have a phenomenal reach with negligible costs to the user or to banks.
In view of the foregoing considerations, it is clear that there is a need for an improved system and method for financial transactions between people in rural communities, where there are very few (or none) ATM machines, banks, or modern point-of-sale devices.
Further limitations and disadvantages of conventional and traditional approaches will become apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art through comparison of such systems with the present invention.